M Helms Sacred 2002

Sacred Landscape and the Early Medieval European Cloister.
Unity, Paradise, and the Cosmic

Mountain
Author(s): Mary W. Helms
Source: Anthropos, Bd. 97, H. 2. (2002), pp. 435-453
Published by: Anthropos Institute
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ANTHROPOS
jT!
97.2002: 435-453
r'
_
Sacred
Landscape
and the
Early
Medieval
European
Cloister
Unity,
Paradise,
and the Cosmic Mountain
Mary
W. Helms
Abstract.
-
The architectural format of the
early
medieval
monastery,
a
widespread
feature of the Western
European
landscape,
is examined from a
cosmological perspective
which
argues
that the
garden,
known as the
garth,
at the center of
the cloister reconstructed the first three
days
of creational
paradise
as described in Genesis and, therefore,
constituted the
symbolic
center of the cloister
complex.
The
monastery
is then
further
interpreted
as
representative
of the cosmic mountain on
whose summit
paradise
was believed to be situated. Outside its
walls monasteries as
symbolic
mountains anchored and defined
the focal
points
of the medieval
European
sacred
landscape.
[Europe, symbolism of
medieval monasteries, garden
as sacred
space,
cosmic mountain,
sacred
landscape]
Mary
W.
Helms, (Ph.D. 1967, Prof.)
is a cultural anthro-
pologist
interested in
cosmology, cosmography,
and
political-
ideological legitimation
who teaches in the
Department
of An-
thropology, University
of North Carolina at Greensboro,
USA.
Major publications
include:
Ulysses'
Sail. An
Ethnographic
Odyssey
of Power, Knowledge,
and
Geographical
Distance
(Princeton 1988),
Craft and the
Kingly
Ideal.
Art, Trade,
and Power
(Austin 1993),
and Access to
Origins.
Affines,
Ancestors,
and Aristocrats
(Austin 1998).
It is a basic tenet of traditional
cosmologies
that
a
given society,
whatever its size and however
it is
politically
or
sociologically
defined,
cannot
survive
solely
on its own terms but must
constantly
reach out
beyond
the borders of its communities
and
polities
to link its own order to an order be-
yond
itself,
that is to
say,
to the cosmos
(Balandier
1970:
101).
Considered
cross-culturally,
the means
of
accomplishing
this task are
many
and diverse.
Some are
expressed primarily
in ritual
behavior;
many
are assisted and manifested at least in
part
by special
natural and/or architectural
settings.
Impressive
evidence of the latter
may
be found
both in the structural forms and
iconograph-
ical details of individual
buildings
or
comp-
lexes dedicated to
spiritual purposes
and in dis-
tributions of a number of such constructions
throughout
a
geographical region
where
they may
transform mere
topography
into sacralized land-
scapes
in which
significant supernatural
or cos-
mological qualities
and
meanings
are
tangibly
ev-
idenced either
by particular geographical
features
or
by
the
siting
of architectural
complexes
with
landscape
-
related features or connotations or
by
a combination of both.
Impressive
evidence of the
deeply
felt need to
relate the vulnerabilities of human
society
to wider
temporal/spatial
dimensions
through
the creation
of some form of sacred
landscapes
can be found
in
many regions
of the
world;
to note
only
a
few,
the networks of earthen mounds characteristic of
pre-Columbian
eastern North
America,
the numer-
ous
temple complexes
of the lowland
Maya,
the
interrelated oracle sanctuaries of the Ibo of
Nige-
ria,
the sacred
places
where the
mythic
ancestors of
Australian
Aboriginal
tribes first
emerged
from the
earth
during
the
Dreaming,
and the distributions
of Neolithic chambered monuments in southern
Wales are all
good examples
of this
practice.1
1 Numerous sources describe the creation of sacred land-
scapes
marked
by
earthen mounds in eastern North America
and
by temple pyramid complexes among
the lowland Ma-
ya;
Cameron Wesson
provides introductory
discussion of
both
(1998).
Ibo oracles are described
by Ottenberg (1958).
436
Mary
W. Helms
I would like to
suggest
that late
antiquity
and
especially early
medieval Western
Europe
offers
another case in
point. During
this era2 the cultural-
ly
created
landscape increasingly
came to include
the abodes of dedicated Christian
holy
men
(and
women), growing
numbers of whose habitations
dotted both towns and
countryside.
Most notable
of these were monasteries3 in which cenobitic
monks,
who renounced kith and
kin,
worldly prob-
lems and
worldly pleasures
and
rewards, opted
to
live in communal habitations well removed from
the routines of
ordinary
secular life.
To
ordinary laypersons living
outside the mon-
astery walls,
the bounded and hidden enclosure
very likely
was a
mysterious
and hallowed
place
filled with
spiritually
rarefied
souls;
a
space
forbid-
den to all but the initiated and the
very privileged
(see
Fischer 1990:
320;
James 1981:
41).
To those
living within,
the
particular organization
of their
habitation
permitted
a more refined identification
of
space
and
place.
Two of these
identifications,
both
carrying "landscape" implications,
are the
major subject
of this
essay:
the rather familiar
theme of the cloister
garden
or
garth
as
paradise
and the related
theme,
less
considered,
of the
cloister
complex
as
sacred,
even cosmic moun-
tain.
Ultimately, however,
when
expanded
into a
perspective
of the
early
medieval
countryside
at
large,
the cloister as
paradise
and sacred mountain
encourages
us to think of the
early
medieval land-
scape
as
virtually
blanketed with numerous
para-
disiacal abodes
standing atop spiritual
mountains
that,
in the form of
monasteries,
dotted the land-
scape
in all directions. To
appreciate
such
imagery,
however,
we must
develop
an
understanding
of the
monastery
in such terms. It is the intent of this
essay
to do so
by discussing
some of the
general
symbolism
contained in the monastic
complex
with
particular
consideration of the cloister walks
and the central
garden
or
garth
at the heart of the
monastery.
The
Monastery
and Its Environs
The
grounds incorporated
within an established
monastery
can be
interpreted
as
constituting
a
carefully
crafted
landscape
in their own
right
in
which some locations were set aside and
developed
to meet the material needs of a
community
of
religious
men while other
settings
were dedicated
to maintenance of their
spiritual
lives
(see,
for
example,
Horn and Born
1979).
It is the latter
that are of
particular
interest
here,
for these
places
and
buildings
were accorded the
qualitative
values
and sometimes housed the rituals
necessary
to
define the
monastery
as a whole as a definitive
ideological
center and a focal
point
in the broader
territory beyond
its walls. Inherent in this wider
identification was
recognition
of the
monastery
as
a consecrated center where contact could be ef-
fected with
supernatural
worlds
beyond;
a
place
of
connections and mediations between
cosmological
realms where sacred
spaces
were linked to the cos-
mos and where liminal
monks,
while
individually
pursuing
the
promise
of an eternal
spiritual
life,
as a
community
of
holy
men
formally
dedicated
to the
ongoing liturgical praise
of God
(the opus
Dei), composed
a
point
of
conjunction
between
heaven and
earth,
between God and
humanity
in
general.
The
importance
of such
conjunctions
in ear-
ly
medieval
cosmology
and
theology
cannot be
overemphasized,
for
they
constituted
part
of the
mystery
and
joy
of
cosmological unity
which
medieval
theology avidly sought
to understand
and celebrate. "The universe is
manifold,
God is
simple;
all that is
innumerable, infinitely varied,
and mutable in the world dissolves into the
unity,
simplicity,
and
tranquility
of God . . .
Unity
in
multiplicity
constitutes one of the
aspects
of
beauty
in God"
(De Bruyne
1969:
139, 77;
see also Ladner
1983:
242).
Not
surprisingly, unity
and the
beauty
it revealed were fundamental to
early
medieval
monastic life and
(as
discussion of the
garden
-
Anthropos
97.2002
Introduction to the sacred
landscape
of the Australian Ab-
origines
can be found in Biernoff
(1978)
and also in
Tilley
(1994:37-48,
see also
chap.
2 in
general).
Discussion of
the Neolithic chambered monuments in southern Wales is
found in
Tilley (1994: part two).
An introduction to the
entire
subject
of sacred
landscapes
can also be
readily
found in
Tilley (1994, esp. chap. 1)
and Wesson
(1998:
93-98).
2 The overall time
period
referenced in research for this
essay
extends
approximately
from the 4th
century up
to
the
emergence
of the mendicant orders in the
13th,
the
period
when
European
monasticism
developed
and under-
went
early processes
of standardization and reform. Within
this extensive
period, however,
I focus
particularly
on the
monasticism of the 8th to 12th centuries.
Broadly speaking,
I am interested in the
theology, cosmology,
and monastic
life of Western
Europe prior
to the
theological changes
that
begin
to
appear by
the 12th
century
and the monastic
adjustments
occasioned
by
the
emergence
of the mendicant
orders. See note 4.
3 The humble
dwellings
of
solitary
hermits
(e. g.,
Constable
1988:239-264; Leyser 1984)
and the
graves
of saints
(Brown 1981),
not to mention the wide distribution of
shrines and oratories where their
holy
relics were venerated
(Geary 1994),
were also
part
of this sacred
landscape
of
abodes but are not included in this
essay.
In
discussing
monasteries I am
focusing only
on communities of monks.
Houses for women are not included.
Sacred
Landscape
and the
Early
Medieval
European
Cloister 437
Fig.
1: Reconstruction of
principal
claustral structures and cloister based on the Plan of St. Gall
(Horn
and Born 1979:
244).
garth
will
illustrate)
also informed the
metaphor-
ical and
theological interpretations
accorded to or
implied
in sacred
spaces
constructed within the
monastery.
With
respect
to the individual monastic
experience,
suffice it to
say
here that
(as
numerous
authors have
explained
at
length;
see notes 4 and
8)
monks
sought
unification with a better world.
Striving
to reverse
original
sin and to recreate
sacred
time,
they pursued nothing
less than the
pure, idyllic,
Edenic state of human existence that
had
pertained
at the
original
creation.
Through
personal
austerities,
readings
and
studies,
and li-
turgical offerings,
the brothers strove to attain both
closer
personal
union with their God and a sense
of connectedness and of oneness with what we
may
call the "first
principles"
that defined and
motivated their faith. Foremost
among
these were
references
(to
be discussed further
below)
to the
conditions characteristic of the
original ("mythic")
state of
being
and
becoming
believed to have
existed
during
the first
days
of the created universe
as described in the hexaemeron
(Genesis
1 and 2.1-
3)
and the first
part
of the
story
of the Garden
Anthropos
97.2002
of Eden
(especially
Genesis
2.4-20)
when Adam
in innocence lived alone with his God
serving,
as it
were,
as
archetype
for
generations
of me-
dieval celibate monks
who, Adam-like, sought
to
regain
some measure of the
perfection
of
that first
paradise
even as
they
also
prepared
themselves
spiritually
for the final
paradise
of the
parousia.
In
pursuing
these
goals, early
medieval monks
expressed
the ideal of the
cosmology
and
theology
characteristic of their
age
which,
in
essence,
em-
phasized
an
engrossing preoccupation
with abso-
lute first
principles
as
expressed
in
recognition
of
an
eternal, God-created, hierarchically-structured,
ordered,
and
unchanging
universe in which the
significance
of all
reality
was
directly
referred to
sacred
beginnings
more than to human
history
("in
its
very
nature
Christianity
focused on the
creator,
the
created,
and that which bound them
together";
Glacken 1967:
172, 253).
It also em-
phasized
a distant God made accessible to humans
by
a
glorious
Christ
theologically interpreted
as
also full
divinity,
a cosmic
suprahuman
remote
438
Mary
W. Helms
from
people
and a
powerful pantocrator
who was
absolute Celestial
King
and stern Divine
Judge
of
the
Apocalypse.4
First
principles
were also
expressed directly
or
indirectly
in at least some of the architectur-
al
arrangements
of
early
medieval
monasteries,
as discussion of the
garth
will
clearly
evidence.
Concerning
architectural form in
general,
the his-
torical
origins
and
early development
of West-
ern
European
monasteries followed a number of
different routes in late
antiquity
and
during
the
Merovingian
centuries and are still
very
unclear
in
many particulars.5
However,
there is no doubt
that
by
the
mid-eighth
-
early-ninth
centuries
the formal
arrangement
of the basic elements of
what was to become the standard format for the
typical (Benedictine)
medieval monastic
precinct
was extant. For
example,
the
early Carolingian
monastery
at
Lorsch,
built in
mid-eighth
centu-
ry,6
and
especially
the schematic
depiction
of a
monastery complex
known as the "Plan of St.
Gall"
(Fig. 1), dating
from the
early
9th
century,7
evidence the
square
cloister
complex
tucked into
the
angle
created
by
the
(frequently)
south wall
and
adjacent transept
of the
(typically) east-facing
church
(as
on the
plan, though
at Lorsch the
cloister was on the north side of the
church)
and
further enclosed
by
close
regular arrangement
of
claustral
buildings necessary
for communal
living.
These included,
most
significantly,
the
dormitory
(typically
situated on the east side of the cloister,
next to the church
transept),
the
refectory (on
the south
side),
and cellars and larders
(often
on the west
side).
The central cloister
complex
itself was
composed
of
walkways surrounding
a
central
garden; specifically,
four covered
galleries
bounded and enclosed on their outer side
by
the
claustral
buildings just
mentioned and,
on their
inner
side, defining
the four sides of the formal
central
garden,
the
garth,
that
lay
at the heart of the
cloister and from which the covered walks were
separated by
fenestrated walls and low
parapets
broken
by
four
doorways,
one each in the center
of each
walk,
that
provided
access to the
garth (see
Fig. 2).
The
daily
monastic routine was conducted
among
the various claustral
buildings
and in the
cloister
walks,
where the monks
generally
lived
during
the
day
between the
stipulated
hours of
prayer
in the church and communal meals in the
refectory.8
No formal rites or activities occurred
in the central
garth,
which was
apparently
utilized
instead as a
place
for individual meditative walks
and such
quiet
conversation as
time, duties,
and
the formal dictates of the rule that
officially guided
monastic life allowed
(see
Meisel and del Mastro
1975).
However,
the
importance
of the various loca-
tions within the monastic
compound
does not lie
only
in their functional
utility
but also includes the
symbolism
that
pertained
to the
monastery
overall
and
especially
imbued the more
important
claustral
places
and underwrote the activities conducted
there.9 Some of these more
specific symbolic
assignments
are of
particular
interest in this
essay,
but it should also be
noted,
if
only
in
passing,
that
the medieval
monastery
as a
whole,
and
especially
the
church,
constituted sacred
space
in
general by
virtue of several
sacralizing
circumstances. The
formal ritual of consecration
(sometimes simply
the
saying
of the first
mass;
Markus 1990:
141,
149),
which further
enjoined protection by
God
and the relics of
patron
saints, formally
dedicated
these
premises (Remensnyder
1995:22, 31-34).
The
equally
formal induction
ceremony
for ad-
mission into the monastic order
(Klawitter 1981)
and the
officially regularized
monastic
lifestyle
in
pursuit
of an ideal existence
(Meisel
and del
Mastro
1975) helped
to create this
atmosphere,
too. In
addition,
a
monastery
often rested on a
site that was
already
sanctified. Not
infrequently
the
geographical setting
chosen for an
early
medi-
4 References for
early
medieval
cosmology
and
theology
are
many,
but the
following
were
among
those
providing
the above
summary:
Gellrich 1985:41;
Cassirer 1955:88;
Gurevich 1985:293;
Chenu 1968:81., 121, 128;
Ladner
1995:12, 44, 54-58, 65-66, 84, 257; Case 1946:93,
94;
Pelikan 1985:
chap. 5; Jungmann
1962:44; Bynum
1982: 16. This
theological perspective began
to
change
markedly during
the 1 lth and 12th centuries when
emphasis
shifted to
greater
consideration of the
humanity
and "his-
toricity"
of Christ and the church.
5 See,
for
example, Desprez
1990;
Luff 1952; Clarke and
Brennan 1981; McKitterick 1989: 109-111, 121;
O' Sulli-
van 1965.
6 See James 1981:46f.;
Horn 1973: 42f.;
Sowers 1951:216
note 51, 234.
7 Horn and Born 1979; Sanderson 1985;
Sowers 1951: 284 f.,
428.
8 There is a considerable literature
concerning
various
aspects
of the culture of the medieval world in which monasticism
flourished and the
daily
routine of monastic life. Useful
overviews and
many
details
may
be found in
(among
others)
Lawrence 1989; Leclercq
1961;
Braunfels 1972;
Cook 1961;
Horn and Born 1979;
Evans 1931;
Bitel 1990;
Meyvaert
1973.
9 As Fischer has
phrased
it,
"a
monastery
is a
unique
and
idealized
place, requiring
a constant renewal of
energy
to be maintained. It uses
symbol
and
praxis
to do so.
Both
symbols
and custom fall into three main
categories
-
community, liturgy,
and monastic
space" (1990: 320).
Anthropos
97.2002
Sacred
Landscape
and the
Early
Medieval
European
Cloister 439
Fig.
2: Plan of the cloister walks and
garth, plan
of St. Gall
(Horn
and Born 1979:
257).
eval
monastery
was one that had been
previously
identified as a
hierophanic place
where sacred
powers
had
already
manifested themselves.
Thus,
for
example,
chosen monastic locations
might
in-
clude sites of ancient
pagan
tombs or abandoned
churches or old altars
(Bitel
1990:
48, 82;
Remen-
snyder 1995:45-46),
or sacred
groves
of trees
(Glacken 1967:310;
see also Leeuw 1967:393-
395),
or sacred
springs.10
Monastic foundation
leg-
ends also mention divine
designation (revelation)
of a site
through
visions sent to
individuals,
often
holy
men
already
close to
God,
or
through symbol-
ically significant
animals that
defined, revealed,
or
demarcated the location of a hidden sacred
place
suitable for a future
monastery (Remensnyder
1995:44, 54-66).
In all such cases the
setting
was
regarded
as
perpetually
and
irreversibly
ded-
icated to
God;
a hallowed
place
that was not
only intrinsically
and
essentially
sacred but
also,
by
definition,
a
place
of
cosmological
first
prin-
ciples,
for "no mere human
being
can
designate
space
as
part
of sacred
topography,
as a
'gate
of
heaven' . . .
Theophany,
an
irruption
of the divine
10
Muncey
1930: 77
f.; Remensnyder
1995: 44
f.; Cooper-
Marsdin 1913:41.
Anthropos
97.2002
440
Mary
W. Helms
is
necessary" (Remensnyder
1995: 43
f., 46-47,
chap. I).11
Turning
to the
monastery proper,
the conse-
crated monastic
complex
dedicated to its other-
worldly purpose
has been
broadly
characterized
by
modern scholars in
strongly
first
principle
terms as
presaging
the
heavenly
Jerusalem,
reflecting
the
changelessness
and timelessness characteristic of
eternity,
and
standing
as microcosm of cosmic
harmony.12
More
specific
associations have been
recognized
in individual rooms and
buildings.
For
example,
the Biblical
"upper
room" as described
in "The Acts of the
Apostles"
(20.8)
served as
prototype
for the monks'
refectory
where a broth-
erhood of true believers continued to
regular-
ly
come
together
to break bread in a
place
lit
with
many lamps (Ferguson
1986:
174),
while the
church
proper, heavily symbolic
in its
particulars,
has been described in
general
as a transcendent
interior world
basically representing
the eternal
Civitas Dei
(Norberg-Schultz
1975:
120, 123;
see
also
below). However,
perhaps
the most
profound
symbolism, certainly
the most
profound
first
prin-
ciple
creational
symbolism,
as well as
symbolism
that
again
evokes at least in
part
the theme of
a sacred
landscape,
seems to have been centered
on the cloister
proper;
the
garden-garth
with its
adjacent
covered walks that
composed
the
spiritual
as well as locational heart of the
monastery
and
whose features allow us to
interpret
the claustral
core as a
primordial
(Edenic) garden paradise
on
top
of a cosmic mountain.
The Cloister Walks as Ritual Paths
Standing adjacent
to the central
garth
and con-
taining entryways
into that
garden,
the cloister
walks
may
be
broadly interpreted
as
constituting
the threshold to a sacred center
(see below) and,
therefore,
as imbued with the
broadly protec-
tive and
delimiting symbolism
that accrues to all
thresholds.13 In
addition,
although
diverse
daily
activities were
routinely performed
in the
walks,
the conduct of
elaborate,
carefully
orchestrated,
and accoutered formal
processions typically
held
there on
Sundays
and
major
feast
days
identifies
the walks as a ritual
path,
a sacred
way
or am-
bulatory surrounding
the
garden-garth,
for
Sunday
processions began
in the
church,
then entered the
cloister and moved
along
the
east, south,
and
west walks
(but
did not enter the
garth)
before
reentering
the church for
concluding
rites.14 This
formal circumambulation
(see
note
14)
can also
be understood in
part
as a rite of
purification
that
drove the
unruly
and
ubiquitous
demons from the
monks'
living
areas both
by intruding
into the
walks the
principle
and
power
of
cosmological
order encoded in the formal
organization
of the
procession (note 14)15
and
by
the ritual
asperging
of the
buildings along
the outer side of the walls
that was also
part
of the
ceremony.
In so
doing,
Sunday
cloister
processions protectively
cleansed
and defended
space
and
place
and thus were of
a
piece
with similar
processions
around church
walls and altars
during
church consecrations and
around the battlements of towns when threatened
by
external enemies and even with the ancient
practice by
farmers of
carrying holy
relics around
the fields to ensure successful
crops.16
11 A
properly
hallowed
setting
could also be established
by
an
original
act of
"taming"
wilderness
by
the
clearing
of land and the construction of an
organized
monastic
settlement,
no matter how rude,
in a desolate location.
By
establishing
a sanctified
space
in the midst of surround-
ing
wilds the
cosmological quality
and identification of
the
place
was transformed from that of a chaotic
pagan
wilderness to that of an
orderly,
even Edenic site under
God's
protection
(Braunfels
1972:74;
Leeuw 1967:399;
see
description
of the
ceremony
of
possession
in Glacken
1967: 309 and n.
68).
Related
hagiographical
accounts also
describe the harmonious relationship
between monks and
wild animals in such rustic locales;
a
friendship reflecting
the
(re)creation
of earth before the Fall,
when sinless man
properly
coexisted with nature
(Glacken
1967: 310;
see also
Remensnyder 1995:57-66).
12 Farmer 1991: 184-186; Remensnyder
1995:21; Constable
1982:51.
13 Van
Gennep
1960:21, 24;
James 1966:45-46;
Eliade
1959b: 25, 81;
Cassirer 1955: 103.
14 "First walked the bearer of the
holy
water,
next the
cross-bearer between two
acolytes carrying lighted
candles,
followed
by
the subdeacon
carrying
the
gospels
in front of
the
priest
who was to celebrate mass. The convent with
the
juniors
at its head followed at a slow
pace;
the abbot,
turning
neither to the left nor the
right, walking
in the
centre of the
path
and
being
the last in the
procession.
Each
pair
of brethren moved
evenly
and
regularly
four feet
from the
pair
in
front,
all
singing
the
responses" (Crossley
1936:
63).
The monks
processed along
some of the walks
on a
daily
basis, too,
as the members of the
community
formally
moved as a
body
from
place
to
place
in the course
of their
day. "Marching
as one,
often
chanting,
at all the
various
changes
of the
day
... the monks
truly perfect
the
procession,
the formal motion of one incarnate
body
dedicated and subsumed to God"
(Sowers 1951:234;
see
also
Sparks
1978:79-82;
Lawrence 1989:
115).
15 "It is the ordered round or the
monastery
that
keeps
trie
devil at
bay" (Ward
1976:
195).
See
descriptions
in
Crossley
1936: 62f.;
Evans 1931:82-84;
Lackner 1972:55; Rites
of
Durham 1903: 105,
302 f. and
map.
16
E.g., Remensnyder
1995:32, 34;
Koziol 1992: 253 f.;
Eliade 1958: 371;
Cook 1974: 11;
Russell 1994: 181; Duby
1995:90.
Anthropos
97.2002
Sacred
Landscape
and the
Early
Medieval
European
Cloister 441
The
repetitive
nature of the
Sunday processions,
their
regular
conduct,
week after
week,
is
signifi-
cant, too,
for such
periodicity
not
only bespoke
the
persistent
efforts needed to
keep
demonic elements
at
bay (monasteries
full of
spiritually
inclined
and virtuous but
imperfect
men were
regarded
as
favorite demonic
playgrounds)
but also invoked
the
principle
of ritual
repetition by
which hiero-
phanies
are sustained at sacred centers. Thus the
Sunday processions appear
as an
expression
of
the basic tenet that "in
religion,
as in
magic,
the
periodic
recurrence of
anything signifies primarily
that a
mythical
time is made
present
and then
used
indefinitely" (Eliade
1958:
392,
emphasis
in
original).
In
general
terms,
and in line with the
general theology
of the
age,
the
mythic
time
per-
sistently
evoked on
Sundays
and
major
feast
days
by regularly
ordered
processions very likely
was
that of creational
beginnings
when first
principles
of hierarchical order and
harmony organized
the
cosmos. In
addition,
the
processions
would
appear
to have indicated that the
earthly
locus of the cre-
ational time that
they
evoked was not
(or
not
only)
the cloister walks but the cloister
garth,
for the
progress
of the
processions clearly
entailed a ritual
circling,
that
is,
a ritual definition of that central
place.
More
specifically,
the
repeated processions
can be understood as
constantly (re)evoking
the
identification accorded to the
garth by
its own
symbols (see below)
as a site of Edenic
paradise,
a
physical setting
of creational time made
present
for the brothers
who,
as would-be
Adams,
could
advance in formal
processional
order around its
border in close threshold
proximity
to the
para-
disiacal
garden,
but whose still
imperfect
state of
spirituality prevented
them from
formally (ritually)
entering
it.
The formal
weekly
circumambulations in the
walks thus
emphasized
the
focality
of and a
context of
"inaccessibility"
for the
garth
as a
spiritual
and locational central
place
within the
cloister
compound.17
In
addition, exempting
the
garth
from the
cleansing
rites,
the
aspergings,
that
accompanied
the circumambulation would seem
to further
imply
that the
garth
was also
recog-
nized as a
place
of inherent
purity
that did not
require
further
protection against
demons and the
cosmological
chaos
they represented presumably
because,
as first
principle paradise,
the
garth
stood
in its own
right
as an inviolable sacred
center,
a
point
of
hierophanic
connection between heaven
and
earth,
a
place
indicative of the
power
and
beauty
of
original
creation.
By definition,
chaos
would be
perpetually
banished from such a site and
demons would find no
lodging there; they
could
only
assail the environs inhabited
by
still
earthly,
still sinful men.
Omitting
the
garth
from
protective
and
purifying rituals, therefore,
can be understood
as a
quiet acknowledgement
and
reemphasis
of
the basic
qualities
and the
mythic
creational time
already present
there.
Paradise and the Garth
When considered in
symbolic
context,
the
garth
emerges
as the true
ideological
center of the
cenobitic
community though
it
rarely
has been
explicitly recognized
as such in
scholarly descrip-
tions and discussions of medieval monastic life.18
Nonetheless,
when the
qualitative
value of its
various attributes are considered both in
part
and,
especially,
in
whole,
the
garth appears
as a sacred
place defining
a true center or inner "kernel" of
enclosed sacred
space
at the heart of the cloister
and of the
monastery;
an
intentionally
crafted
place
that was "intimate and
precious"
in its own
right
(Sowers
1951: 229
f.)
and that must be
regarded
as
both
cosmological
and cosmic in
significance
since
"to
organize
a
space
is to
repeat
the
paradigmatic
work of the
gods" (Eliade quoted
in Gellrich
1985:
68).19
17
By emphasizing
the
garth
these rituals further enhanced
the role of the walks as a
bordering
threshold, too, for,
as Barrie has noted, "architecture,
and
particularly
sacred
architecture,
often involves a
dynamic
between the
path
and the
place.
It is
possible
to examine them
separately,
but
they
can
only
be
fully
understood in their
interplay,
as
an
integrated
whole"
(1996:40,
38 f., 119).
18 In
light
of its more
imposing
architectural
presence
and/or
the
paramount importance
of the
opus
Dei in monastic
life,
the church is often cited as the center of monas-
tery
life
(e. g.,
Hunt 1967: 109;
Braunfels 1979:
xii;
Barrie
1996:
230).
Sometimes "the cloister" in
general
has been so
regarded (Cranage
1926: 1, 64)
or the
chapter
house
(Gil-
christ 1994:
166).
The cloister
walkways
are
occasionally
accorded
centricity by
virtue of their function as the basic
traffic lane
linking
the various
perimeter buildings (Stod-
dard 1966: 21, 29)
and sometimes the four cloister walks to-
gether
with the
garth (Dickinson
1961: 28; Norberg-Schulz
1975:
153). Only
Sowers
suggests
the
centrality
of a "court"
as basic to
monastery organization, though
his
interpretation
seems to
appreciate
the court
(garth)
with its
surrounding
buildings
as much as the court itself as the fundamental
unit in
question (1951: 20).
19 In
using
terms such as
"space"
and
"place"
I follow in
general
the
usage
in
anthropology
and
geography
in which
"space"
is a human construct for human action and a
"place"
is a center with human
significance
and some
degree
of emotional attachment
(e.g.,
Rodman
1992).
"A
place
is a social construct;
a location
only
becomes a
place
when
significance
is conferred on it"
(Turner 1988:421).
"It is
activity
that creates
places, giving significance
to
Anthropos
97.2002
442 Mary
W. Helms
As
deliberately
created and
organized
cosmo-
logical space,
the
garth
encoded numerous
sym-
bolic
significations
and identifications and was
accorded a
unique
and distinctive aesthetic
qual-
ity expressed by
the
pleasing arrangement
of the
parapets,
arches,
and
entryways
that defined the
boundary,
the ordered
patterning
of
paths, plants,
and
green
turf that covered the
earth,
the focal
placement
of a
fountain,
or
well,
or a
tree,
and the
bright
and
airy openness
to the
sky
and to
light.
The
garth's
sacred
symbolism,
however,
begins
with its formal
presentation
as a bounded and
enclosed
space, typically, though
not
inevitably,
in the form of a
square.20
As an
enclosure,
this
presentation
is
suggestive
of the
long-standing
Germanic tradition of
recognizing circumscription
as a means of
delineating
a
qualitatively charged
space.
Such
settings,
which were numerous in
Germanic
culture,
typically
enclosed a
thing
or
an
activity closely
associated
cosmologically
and
mythologically
with the
past
or
past
tradition. Ex-
amples
include
(among others)
the
rope-enclosed
court of
law,
the
stone-ringed grave,
and the en-
closure of a
circular,
square,
or
rectangular
sacred
space containing
a ritual feature such as a
spring,
hearth,
standing
stone,
or monolith.21 In
addition,
it is
particularly noteworthy
that,
according
to
Webster's
Dictionary,
the word
"garth," meaning
yard
or
close,
derived from Old Norse.
According
to Pennick
(1980:89), "garth" (and "yarth")
also
meant earth in the sense of microcosm and are
cog-
nate with
"girth" (gyrth)
which,
in Old
Scottish,
meant
sanctuary
or
asylum
and was also used to
describe the circle of stones
surrounding
an ancient
place
of
judgement.22
In
light
both of these
past
practices
and definitions and of the
significations
encoded in the
garth itself,
the continued use of the
term
"garth"
in the context of the enclosed
garden
at the center of the cloister seems
appropriate,
perhaps
as another manifestation of the substantial
Germanization accorded
early
medieval
European
Christianity
in
general (see
Russell
1994;
Riche
1978:231).
The
square shape given
the
garth
can be
appre-
ciated in terms of the sacred
geometry
character-
istic of the Christian
cosmological
formulations of
late
Antiquity
and the
early
Middle
Ages,
in which
the divine
order, stability,
and
harmony
of the
cosmos were based on numerical ratios
expressed
in certain
"perfect" proportions.
The
shape
of the
square (and presumably
of the
garth
as a
tangible
expression
of the
square), being
based on the
"perfect"
ratio of
1:1,
was indicative of
sameness,
equality
and
unity, particularly
the
eternal,
first
principle relationship
between God the Father and
the Son in which God is
supreme unity
and the
Son is
unity begotten by unity,
as the
square
results from
multiplication
of a
magnitude by
itself.23 The
square
also inscribed the
symbolism
of
divine
quaternity (that is, perfection
reflected in the
number
four;
e.g., Spitzer
1963:67-69; Hopper
1969:42, 83-84, 112-113)
in the four
paths
that
typically
led from entrances at the middle of each
of the four
surrounding
cloister walks to the center
of the
garth, dividing
the
garth
into
quarters
and
delineating
a central
point
at its heart. In cosmo-
logically
informed architecture in
general,
a
square
quartered
in this
way
is said to
symbolize
the four
quarters
of the world and the
center,
the
point
of intersection of the
paths,
to constitute an om-
phalos',
a
point
of
supernaturally charged
contact
between
cosmological
worlds
(heaven
and
earth,
people
and the
gods,
the
living
and the
dead;
Barrie
1996:
115;
Pennick 1980:
180).
An
omphalos,
in
turn,
could be marked in
tangible iconography by
an axis mundi. In the
early
medieval
garth
either
a tree or
possibly
a well or fountain
graced
the
center of the
garth
in this
capacity,
and
although
the
exegesis
of the
symbolism
of both is
extensive,
a review of some of the most basic tenets can cast
further
light
on the
garth's significance.
In the
early
Middle
Ages (as
before and
since),
the tree as a
symbolic
form embodied the most
important
doctrines of
Christianity, being
asso-
ciated with
pristine,
first
principle origins
in Eden
(the
Tree of Life and the Tree of
Knowledge),
with
humanity's
fall from divine
grace (the eating
of
the forbidden fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge),
with the
atoning
event that redeemed that fall
(Christ's
cross as
tree),
and with the
heavenly
impervious
matter"
(Myers 1986:54).
More
specifically,
"the most
important spaces
were linked to the
spot
of
creation,
having temporal
as well as
spatial
value"
(Vansina
1985: 125).
20 See Braunfels 1972:
237;
Horn and Born 1979: 100
f.; Gim-
pel
1983: 101. In some cases the
shape
as well as the size of
the
garth
was altered to accomodate
topographical
realities
as well as the size of the
community.
21 Davidson
1988:27; Bauschatz 1982: 17
f., 137, 138;
Gure-
vich 1985:47.
22
Compare
Bitel
(1990:
59
f.) regarding
the circular enclosure
delineating
the Irish
monastery
as a
replica
of the cosmos
and a
hierophanic place.
23 See Simson 1988:
27, 49;
Pennick
1980;
Horn
1975;
Ladner
1995; 110, 113.
Architecturally,
the method for
determining
the
ground plan
of the
garth
and the
adjacent
cloister walks
involved
"doubling
the
square," yielding
a
proportion
of
1:2 between the area of the
garth
itself and that of the
garth
and walks combined. This ratio stood next in rank to that
of the
square
as an interval of
perfect
consonance
(e. g.,
Simson 1988:
16, 21, 40, 49; Gimpel
1983:
101).
Anthropos
97.2002
Sacred
Landscape
and the
Early
Medieval
European
Cloister 443
paradise
of the eternal future
(the
trees of the
celestial
Jerusalem) (e. g.,
Robertson
1951;
Rahner
1963:61-64, 67).
As features of the
(sacralized)
landscape
trees were also
traditionally
associated
both with the abodes of eremitical
holy
men and
with the
graves
of saints and could mark the sites
of future monasteries.24 Considered in broader
cosmological
terms,
such
symbolically significant
trees
exemplify
the
widespread concept
of the
Cosmic or World
Tree,
embodiment of
profound
first
principle concepts
in
many
cultures where it
stands as
unifying
axis
mundi,25
serves as cosmic
theophany
and,
as
archetype
of
life-giving plants,
evidences
life, immortality,
and the
mystery
of the
periodic rejuvenation
and
perpetual regeneration
of the universe.26
In
light
of these associations it seems reason-
able to
suggest
that the tree that
frequently
stood
at the center of the
early
medieval cloister
garth
(the
Plan of St. Gall indicates an
evergreen
savin
juniper
at that
spot;
Horn and Born 1979:
123,
246-248, 259)27
not
only
held a
general
kin-
ship
with trees associated with abodes of
holy
men in
general
but more
specifically represented
one or more of the various Christian
interpre-
tations of the doctrinal tree and stood as axis
mundi, thereby
further
identifying
the center of
the
garth
as a manifestation of the center of the
world
(see,
for
example, Meyvaert
1986: 51
f.;
also
note
25).
In
general myth, legend,
and Biblical
scripture
the cosmic tree and the
tree(s)
of
paradise (past
and
future)
are
accompanied by
a
spring,
fountain,
or river of
flowing
water. The fountain
appears
to have been a
fairly
common feature of the
cloister
garth,
too,
at least
by
the
12th-century
(see
Miller 1986:
152;
Meyvaert
1973:
58),
and in
cases when a fountain or well stood at the center
of the
garth
it, too,
would
appear
to have identified
that
point
as an
omphalos.
However,
at least one
scholar feels that a
garth
fountain
was,
in
fact,
a
relatively
rare occurrence
(Miller
1986:
141)
and
while there is mention of
"gushing
fountains of
clear water" at
seventh-century Jumiges (Horn
1973:35),
on the Plan of St. Gall no well or
fountain is indicated in the
garth (which may
or
may
not be a
telling
indication. In the formal
arrangement
of the
garth only
one
representation,
either the tree or the
fountain/well,
stood at the
center and the
other,
if
present,
was
placed
else-
where in the
garden.) Regardless
of the
frequency
of its occurrence in the
garth,
however, water,
if
present,
could
convey
marked first
principle
symbolism
in
general,
for its
life-giving potential
was well
represented
both in old German cos-
mology (Bauschatz
1982:
7, 16-26, 121,
211
f.;
Davidson 1988: 25
f.)
and in the Christian rite
of
baptism
as well as in earlier Old Testament
references to the
watery
chaos
(the deep) preceding
creation
(Genesis 1.2,7;
Psalm
24.1-2)
and to
the
nurturing
waters of Eden.28 Both the Edenic
waters and the waters of
baptism underlay
the
concept
of the Fountain of Life
developed by early
church fathers and elaborated
by Carolingian
and
later medieval
theologians (Underwood 1950).
Not
surprisingly,
the
presence
of a sacred
spring
could
define the site of a future
monastery (see
note
10)
while within the
monastery
Honorius of
"Autun,"
writing
in the 12th
century (but
who
compiled
earlier
sources)
indicated that the cloister fountain
signified
the
baptismal
font which was
linked,
in
turn,
to the Tree of Life
(Dynes
1973:61, 64;
Williams
1962:48).
The
placement
of a tree and
perhaps
a foun-
tain
(or well)
in the
early
medieval
garth high-
lighted
the formal
presentation
of that
space
as
a
garden. Although
no
complete description
of
a medieval cloister
garth-cum-garden
is
known,
the
garth
is
generally
accorded the
particular
ar-
rangements
characteristic of the
small,
secluded
24 E.
g.,
Brown 1981: 76;
Riche 1978: 185;
Horowitz 1998: 9;
Danilou 1964: 31-34; Meyvaert
1986:38;
see also notes
3 and 11.
25 The cross as cosmic tree was
lyrically
described
by Hippol-
ytus
of Rome in an Easter sermon
dating
from the
beginning
of the third
century:
"This tree,
wide as the heavens itself,
has
grown up
into heaven from the earth. It is an immortal
growth
and towers twixt heaven and earth. It is the fulcrum
of all
things
and the
place
where
they
are at rest. It is the
foundation of the round world,
the centre of the cosmos.
In it all the diversities in our human nature are formed into
a
unity.
It is held
together by
invisible nails of the
Spirit
so that it
may
not break loose from the divine. It touches
the
highest
summits of heaven and makes the earth firm
beneath its foot,
and it
grasps
the middle
regions
between
them with its immeasurable arms ..."
(quoted
in Rahner
1963:
67).
26 Kuntz and Kuntz 1987: 319-321;
James 1966; Cook 1974;
Eliade 1958:267-288.
27 "Savin" or "savina" is the common name for
Juniperus
sabina,
a. low
spreading
shrub or small tree of Mediter-
ranean
origin
that can
range
in
height
and character from
a
prostrate plant
about 3-4 feet tall to a
strongly
trunked
tree of as much as 17 feet with
spreading
branches and an
umbrella-shaped
crown. It was introduced into
Germany
and France in
pre-Carolingian
times and from there was
extended further north
(Horn
and Born 1979:246-258,
259;
see also Harrar 1969:
137).
A savin is also mentioned
as the "bush" in the
(presumably)
center of the
garth
in the
eleventh-century Horologium
stellare monasticum
(Constable
1975: 7 and note 17, pp.
8, 13).
28 Rahner 1963:69, 79-81;
Kuntz and Kuntz 1987:319;
Robertson 1951: 30f.
Anthropos
97.2002
444
Mary
W. Helms
hortus conclusus
which,
in addition to a central
feature,
such as a well/fountain or a
tree,
and
subdividing pathways, typically
contained
open
ground
covered
by closely
trimmed
green
lawn
and a
pleasant
and
orderly
assortment of
carefully
arranged
formal beds of
flowers,
small
shrubs,
and
evergreens (Harvey
1981: 60
f.;
Stokstad 1983:
28-33). However, though
enclosed and limited
in its horizontal dimensions and secluded within
the
cloister,
the
garden garth
was not secret or
hidden. On the
contrary,
as Stokstad has
empha-
sized,
such a
garden, being completely exposed
to
the
expansive canopy
of the
sky,
stood
open
to
everything
above: "to the
sun,
to the
elements,
to
God"
(1983:29-31). Filled, then,
with the
bright
light
of heaven
(in
marked contrast to the dark
church and the roofed and
shadowy
cloister walks
surrounding
the
garth)
and
standing
as an oasis of
water,
plants,
fresh
air,
and
sunlight
that was also
filled with a
deeply expressive
silence,
the
garth
as
garden
constituted "the ideal
setting
in which
to conform the human
spirit
to celestial
things"
(Leoni 1996:73, 80,
84 f.
speaking
of the wall
gardens
of
sixteenth-century Ferrara).29
Indeed,
the
garth
as an enclosed
garden
can
readily
be understood as a literal
representation
of the
concept
of
paradise,
as
many
authors have
done.30 Even as
cursory
a discussion of the
garth's
attributes as has been
given
here reveals that each
feature
individually signified
the
setting
forth of
some first
principle quality
while the
garth
in its
entirety
recreated
analogically
the overall nature
of
primordial paradise,
of
Eden,
conceived of as a
carefully
crafted
(planted) garden
which man was
to dress and
keep (cf. Rykwert
1972:
13;
Genesis
2.
8, 15). Indeed,
as I have
argued
at
length
else-
where
(Helms n.d.),
the
early
medieval
garth
with
its
tree, water,
and
vegetation (see
note
29)
seems
to have recreated not
simply paradise
but,
more
specifically,
the first three
days
of the
hexaemeron,
the
very beginning
of the
creation,
the still or
"static"
period,
as Leach has
phrased
it
(1969),
when the heavens were
distinguished
from the
earth and
light
from
darkness,
the firmament was
created and the sea
separated
from
dry
land,
and
"asexual"
(as
it was then
believed;
cf. Horowitz
1998:
37) seed-generated vegetation grew
but be-
fore the creation of active life forms of sea and air
and land that
procreate bisexually (see
also
Coogan
2001: 1 1 f.
[Hebrew Bible]
notes for Gen.
1,
verses
14-30;
also note
30). Likewise,
the
garth
seems to
have also referenced the first
stages
of the Garden
of Eden when Adam in innocence lived alone in
unity
with his God before the creation of Eve
(Leach 1969;
also Helms
n.d.).
Considered in these
terms,
the definitive characteristics of the
early
medieval
garth
not
only emphasize
creational first
principles
in
general
but reference the
very
start
and the
"highest"
order of
principles designating
cosmological
Firsts; replicate
the
beginning
of the
beginning,
the
paradise
of
original
creation as it
was in its
initial, purest,
most ideal condition and
in its total
perfection
of differentiated "oneness"
and
unity.31
The Cloister and the Cosmic Mountain
As was indicated at the
beginning
of this
essay,
expression
of
unity
was essential to
early
medi-
eval
cosmology, theology,
and monasticism. The
careful
organization
of the monastic life
clearly
bespoke
this fundamental sense of common ac-
cord,
for the
carefully
ordered
daily
routine
(see
Meisel and del Mastro
1975) formally
coordinated
a series of set activities conducted in various
locations
-
church, chapter
house,
cloister
walks,
refectory, dormitory
-
into an
integrated
whole.
The cloister
garth, though
uninvolved in formal
community
life,
nonetheless also
played
a vital
role in
expressing
the
completeness
of the whole
by explicitly emphasizing unity.
Like monastic
life in
general,
it did so
by
the
symbolic
con-
joining
of the
multiple
discrete
components
that,
as an
ensemble,
composed
the
garth
itself,
thus
allowing
the
garth
to stand forth as
constantly
evoking,
in
microcosm,
the
"principle
of
unity
in
multiplicity."
By
virtue of the combined
symbolic signifi-
cations encoded in its various features the
garth
encapsulated
that
unity
in a
strongly
condensed
29 A
complete
discussion of the
symbolic
features of the
garth
would also include consideration of the
significance
of
grass
and of the color
green
as
representative
of the
seed-bearing
earth and of eternal
spring (life)
as well as more detailed
discussion of the
garth
as the center for the
monastery's
reception
of celestial light (lux).
30
George Duby succinctly
summarized this well-known
identification, noting
how in the cloister
garden
"the air
and
sunlight, trees, birds and
flowing
streams still
kept
the
freshness of the first
days
of the
earth; a sort of
paradise
regained
where all
things
testified to God's
perfection"
(1995:63).
31 In
early
Christian and medieval number
symbolism
odd
numbers,
since
they
were not
divisible,
were
regarded
as
more Godlike and
"perfect"
while even
numbers,
like the
duality
that
appears
with Adam and
Eve, being
deviations
from
unity, signified
the
corruptible
and the
transitory.
The
first three
days
of creation thus foreshadowed the
trinity,
the triad defined as
perfect unity (Hopper
1969:
42,
83
f.,
89, 101).
Anthropos
97.2002
Sacred
Landscape
and the
Early
Medieval
European
Cloister 445
form.
Unity
was heralded in the sacred
geometry
of the
garth's square shape
as well as in its
spatial
location as the architectural center of the cloister
complex,
where it
complied
with the medieval
dictum that the center of a
symmetrically propor-
tioned form was indicative of "the
way,
the
truth,
and the
light" (see
Eco 1986:
40). Unity
existed
in the
multiple symbolic referencings
encoded in
the
complex
of
tangible
accoutrements
that,
taken
together,
defined the
garth
as Edenic
paradise
and
replicated
the oneness of the first three
days
of
creation.
Unity
would have been
referenced, too,
as various
tangible symbols
defined the center of
the
garth
as a
probable omphalos
and as site of an
axis mundi where first
principle
cosmic
conjunc-
tion could relate heaven and earth.
Ultimately
the
combination of all these
qualities
identified the
garth
as
"symbolic"
in the
principle
sense of the
term as used
by
church fathers to mean a
"drawing
together,"
a
summary
and token or
creed,
of basic
truths of
Christianity (Ladner
1983:
240).
Much of the
conjunctive
first
principle symbol-
ism
expressed by
the
garth
is also associated with
the
concept
and extensive
imagery
of the sacred
mountain, particularly
with the cosmic mountain,
a
very widespread cosmological
theme and one
that
quite possibly may
be
directly implicated
in
the
symbolism
of the
garth
and, by
extension,
of the cloister in
general.
The cosmic mountain
is so called because it stands as a sacred cen-
ter
linking
heaven and earth and central to an
entire worldview
(Eck
1987:
130).
Ancient cos-
mogonies
describe how the cosmic mountain or
primeval
mound rose out of the infinite
depth
of
the
primordial
ocean at the time of
original,
first
principle
creation;
how the
creator-god
made his
appearance
on
it;
how it was filled with
prodigious
energies
and vital forces and served both as the
axis
mundi,
where earth and
sky
met,
and as
the
omphalos
of the
world,
the
point
of absolute
beginnings.32
As a manifestation of the axis mundi
the cosmic mountain is also
frequently
associated
with the World
Tree,
which
may
be
represented
iconographically
as
standing
on its
summit;
life-
giving
cosmic waters
(rivers)
have their source
at the mountain,
too.33 Not
surprisingly, earthly
mountains, standing high,
often have been asso-
ciated either with this central universal
point
or
at least with its
permanence
and
stability,
and
are
designated accordingly
as sacred
places
on
the
landscape
where
they may
serve as
places
of
revelation and vision and of
pilgrimage.34
Moun-
taintops, being
the nearest
thing
to the
sky,
are
especially implicated
in
symbolism
of ascent and
transcendence,
with visions of both heaven and
earth,
and
speak
of
things
celestial,
especially
of
bright
celestial
light
and of
proximity
to the divine
("The
oldest heaven is the
mountain-top";
Leeuw
1967:
55;
Eck 1987:
132); indeed,
God
may appear
on the
mountaintop
or mountains
may
be
spheres
of the divine in their own
right (Keel
1978:
20;
Eck 1987: 132
f.; Scully 1969).
In the context of
Christianity
and its
forebears,
sacred mountains feature
prominently
in Biblical
and related texts. In the Old Testament the most
important
mountains are
Sinai,
the cosmic moun-
tain of first
principles
in the arid wilderness on
whose cloud-covered summit Moses encountered
the
majesty
of Yahweh and covenanted with
Him,
and
Zion,
the sacred mountain of Jerusalem as
the
royal city
of
David,
of the
Temple,
and of
divinely
favored and
God-protected history.35
In
addition, according
to Jewish
tradition,
the Messi-
ah will
appear
on the summit of the
holy
mountain
(Eliade
1965: 54
f.)
and various mountains
figure
prominently
in the life of
Christ, among
them
Calvary (Golgotha; by early
medieval centuries
believed to be the summit of the cosmic mountain
where Christ will also
return),
the Mount of Olives
(associated
with the last
days
of Christ and
by
tradition
accepted
as the site of the
ascension),
and the mountain of the
transfiguration.36
John,
the author of
Revelation,
was shown in vision the
descent from heaven of the
holy city
of Jerusalem
from the
vantage point
of a
great, high
mountain
(Rev. 21.10)
and
-
of
particular significance
for
the
monastery garth
-
the Garden of
Eden,
the
center of the cosmos where Adam was created and
the source of
flowing
rivers and of
trees,
also is
located on the cosmic mountain.37
32 In some
cosmologies
mountains also constitute world
pillars
that
support
the vault of heaven at the horizon
(Keel
1978: 22
f.;
Eck 1987:131).
33 See,
for
example,
Bernbaum 1997;
Leeuw 1967: 55;
Eliade
1958:99-102 and 1975:380;
Cook 1974: 9 f., plate
7;
Moynihan
1979: ill. b on
p. 8,
8 f.;
Anderson 1988: 190 f.;
Clifford 1972: 158 f., 191;
Levenson 1985:20, 111-137;
Keel 1978: 28 f.
34 Eck 1987: 132 f.;
Bernbaum 1997;
Eliade 1975:379 and
1958: 100 f.
35 Levenson 1985; Clifford 1972:107-120, 131-160, 180,
191 f.;
Bernbaum 1997: 99
f.;
Cohn 1981: 38-61,
66-70.
36 Donaldson 1985;
Bernbaum 1997:89; Leclercq
1961:68;
Eliade 1965: 58 n. 3 and 1959a: 13,
14.
37 "You were in Eden,
the
garden
of God . . .
you
were on
the
holy
mountain of God . .
."; (Ezekiel 28.13-14, 16;
see also
Coogan
2001: 1220
[Hebrew Bible]
note for
Ez. 28.13-14;
Clifford 1972:51, 100, 103, 159;
Leven-
son 1985:128, 129, 131, 139;
Bernbaum 1997:88; Cohn
1981: 30.
Apsidal
mosaics in
early
Christian basilicas fre-
quently depict
Christ seated on a throne and surrounded
by
Anthropos
97.2002
446
Mary
W. Helms
Indeed,
Eden's mountain stands as the arche-
type
of the cosmic mountain in
that,
according
to both ancient and medieval
exegesis,
it stood
higher
than all the other
peaks
and thus was not
inundated
by
the waters of the
Deluge
but instead
provided
a
refuge
from that destruction.38 As
such,
Eden on its
mountaintop,
safe from
harm,
reflects
a traditional theme in both Classical and Christian
literature
whereby
the terrestrial
garden paradise,
being
a
very
desirable and blessed
spot,
is situated
at a
place separated
from and inaccessible to
the inhabited world with its mortal
imperfections
(Ladner 1959:64, 66;
Giamatti 1966: 79
f., 85).
Generally
the "distant"
setting,
marked
by
a
grove
of
trees,
is
high
on a mountain
(alternatively,
some
place
far to the
east;
Giamatti 1966: 50 note
52,
53-55,
chap.
1 in
general).39
Not
surprisingly,
the sacred mountain was also
widely expressed architecturally.
Various forms
of
temples
and
mounds,
often
bearing
hill-related
names,
have been
interpreted
as
representing
the
primal
mountain or as
being
built on a sacred or
cosmic mountain
(e. g., Coogan
2001: 13
[Hebrew
Bible]
notes to Gen.
2.10-14)
and have delineated
the focal
points
of sacred
landscapes.40
This can
be the case even in
geographical regions
far from
actual
mountains,
for
physical
elevation or even an
appreciable
rise of terrain need not be in
evidence;
a
topographically
flat
plain
can
readily
house a
"mountain"
temple
since shrines
interpreted
as
earthly expressions
of the sacred mountains are
thought
to be sited at that
point regardless
of actual
geographical
location
(Anderson
1988: 191
f., 199,
207;
Levenson 1985: 122-
124).41
Nor is it abso-
lutely necessary
for a
temple
to
literally
emulate
an elevational character in order to situate a sacred
mountain,
though
other features
thought
character-
istic of the mountain
may
be
architecturally pres-
ent. For
example,
mountain
temples
often
empha-
size the
stability
and
permanence
of the cosmic
mountain
(and
of the
world) by being
built "four-
square,"
that
is,
with
ground plan
in the
shape
of,
and
emphasizing,
a
square (Pennick
1980: 18
f.).
I should like to
emphasize
this
point
because
I wish to
suggest
that the architectural form of
the medieval
cloister,
specifically
the
foursquare
garden garth
with its
surrounding
walks,
when
considered in
conjunction
with the first
principle
symbolism
it
manifests, may
also evoke the theme
of the
paradisiacal
cosmic mountain even
though
the literal
representation
of
geographical
elevation
is
missing
in the
design
of the cloister.
This
interpretation
is
encouraged by
the
use,
in
medieval
thought,
of the "mountain" as a
trope
for
the
monastery
and the monastic vocation in
general
(though
not the
only
one
by any
means;
the related
concept
of
paradise, among
others,
was
similarly
applied), although
the actual
geographical sitings
of
early
medieval Western
European
monasteries
generally
did not
explicitly
favor mountainous
settings
over other locations.
Rather,
the
paradi-
siacal themes of
separation
from
worldly society
and of
inaccessibility,
which were
architecturally
expressed
in the enclosed structure of formal ceno-
bitic houses whether built in town or
countryside,
were at times enhanced
by continuing
the
long-
established and admired
practice
of
situating
mon-
asteries on islands or in isolated wastes and in the
wilderness of the
forest;
"places
on the
edge"
that,
to be
sure,
sometimes were
marginal
because
they
were also
rocky
or mountainous.
Thus,
in some
such
cases,
monasteries were
literally
constructed
among
and on the mountains.42
Regardless
of actual
locality, though,
the moun-
tain and the
mountaintop
became monastic meta-
phors
for the
incomprehensible majesty
and
gran-
deur of God and for the
challenging
and sometimes
frightening
search for
knowledge
of the unknow-
able. The
image
of Mount Sinai became a
symbol
for this
quest
when it was
expressed
in terms of the
darkly apophatic (Lane
1998: 107-
109).43
In com-
Apostles
on the summit of a mountain whence flow the four
rivers of Paradise (Hobbs 1995: 133; Duchesne 1912: 302).
38 Keel
1978:113-118; Levenson
1985:135;
Anderson
1988:
190, 199-202, 206, 211,
220 n.
52;
Boas
1948:80;
Meyvaert
1986:50 .
104;
Eliade 1975:375.
39
Extending
the theme of distant
heights,
the
garden
of
paradise
was also accorded
fully supraterrestrial
location
high
in the
air, often near the moon or in the third level
of heaven as described in St. Paul's
rapture (II
Corinthians
12.2-4).
Sometimes the
earthly mountaintop,
crowned with
paradise,
stood so
high
that it touched the moon
(Ladner
1959:
64-66;
Corcoran 1945: 17
3; Giamatti 1966:
45, 56,
79
f.).
The
paradisiacal garden
is
frequently
located on the
cosmic mountain elsewhere in the Near
East,
too
(Manuel
and Manuel 1971:
92; James 1966: 74, 75).
40 E.
g.,
Eliade 1958:
lOOf.;
Davies 1987:
384;
Eck 1987:
131;
but see Bernbaum 1997:
chap.
6 n. 1.
41 "Most of the
great Egyptian
sanctuaries claimed to house
within their courts the
primeval hill,
the
'glorious
hill of
the
primordial beginning,'
which had first
emerged
from
the floods of Chaos"
(Keel
1978:
113,
also
114).
42
E.g.,
Lane
1998:46-49, 106 f.;
Le Goff 1988: 50 f., 58
f.;
Workman 1927:
142, 159, 174, 220f., 238, 241;
Remen-
snyder 1995:23, 24, 56. Saint Basil describes the wilder-
ness,
the home of those
seeking
the Lord in
solitude, as a
place
of covenant and of sacred mountains as well as of
deserts and caves
(Williams
1962:
39).
43
Origen
likened those who were filled with the Word of
God
(as
evidenced in their
lives, knowledge,
and
teaching)
to mountains and
hills; similarly,
attainment of the
highest
state of
contemplation
could be described as residence on
an Inner Mountain
(Costello
1976: 334 and note
9;
see note
46).
Anthropos
97.2002
Sacred
Landscape
and the
Early
Medieval
European
Cloister 447
plementary
fashion,
when God was to be
glimpsed
in all the
splendor
of
light,
the
earthly
mountain
in
question
was the mountain of Christ's
passion,
transfiguration,
and
anticipated
future
return, geo-
graphically
set in or near Jerusalem but located
spiritually
in
any place (such
as the
monastery)
where,
far from the world and from
sin,
one could
draw close to God.44 "The mountain of the return
is the
symbol
of the monastic
mystery,
and for
every
Christian who becomes a
monk,
it is as if he
always
lived in this blessed
spot.
It is there that he
can be united to the real
Holy City," meaning (for
writers like Saint
Bernard)
the
heavenly
Jerusalem,
which for the monk was accessible
through
the
monastery (Leclercq
1961:68, 69).
"The monk
leaves the world ... he
separates
himself from it.
He
goes away
into
solitude,
often onto a
mountain,
the better to fulfill the
precept
that the
Church,
on the feast of the
Ascension,
gives
to all the
faithful: 'to live in the celestial
regions'" (Leclercq
1961:
70, referencing
sermons
by Bernard).45
Odo
of
Cluny
used similar
imagery
when he
compared
a
good
monk
ready
for monastic life to a mountain
peak already
bathed in the
light
of eternal dawn
(Hallinger
1971:
40).46
Bearing
in mind these monastic allusions to
the cosmic mountain,
it is instructive to
compare
the architectural and material
arrangements
of the
claustral
garth
and
surrounding
walks with the
schematic
diagram
of the
generic
cosmic mountain
offered
by
Cook
(1974: 10),
somewhat
simplified
here as
Fig.
3
(see
note
47),
which
depicts
the
mountain as set on a
square
base with a
path
in
the middle of each side
leading upward
to the
center
point
where the four
paths
cross and the
cosmic tree stands.
Sanctuary
walls around the
base mark the
boundary
between the sacred and
the
profane, defending against
"the demonic forces
of chaos" which
continually
threaten from without.
These walls
apparently
are also
walkways,
for
they
are also the location of ritual circumambulations
(Cook
1974: 10
f.;
see also Barrie 1996:
119).47
If the
walkway
walls are recast as covered
galleries
and if the elevational feature is
flattened,
Cook's schematic
diagram
becomes
virtually
iden-
tical with the
physical
form
(enclosed square
outline,
four
paths leading
from the middle of
each side to the
center)
and
major
accoutrements
(center
tree or
possibly fountain)
of the
typical
early
medieval cloister
garth
with its
surrounding
cloister
walks,
which also
provide
a ritual
path
for
purifying, demon-thwarting circumambulating
processions. By
now it should be
obvious, too,
that the basic
cosmological
identification of the
cosmic mountain as a central
place
and axis mundi
expressive
of the most fundamental
imagery
of
first
principle
creation and indicative of the
par-
adisiacal
garden
and of contact with God also is
virtually
identical with the
symbolism expressed
in the
garth.
c >
C5
c>
Fig.
3: The Cosmic Mountain
(adapted
from Cook 1974:
10).
Descriptions
of cosmic
mountains, however,
frequently place
the
beckoning
but inaccessible
garden
of
paradise
at the summit of the
peak.
This
image
can be accommodated to the claustral
setting
if we broaden the
perspective
to include
the
surrounding
monastic
compound
and assert
that the medieval
monastery
in toto be assimilated
to a sacred mountain with the
garden-garth,
al-
so
ceremonially
"inaccessible"
during
circumam-
bulations, standing
as the sublime
paradise
and
"revelatory landscape" (cf.
Eck 1987:
132)
at the
44 "The
monastery
shares Sion's
dignity;
it confers on all its
inhabitants the
spiritual
benefits which are
proper
to the
places
sanctified
by
the life of the Lord, by
His Passion
and Ascension,
and which will one
day
see His return in
glory" (Leclercq
1961:68;
Lane 1998:
113).
45
Compare
the ascetical
holy
men of
Syria
who called them-
selves "men of the mountains" and sometimes
deliberately
sought to live on the
mountaintops (Brown
1971:
83).
46 In medieval Cistercian literature John of Ford defines the
monk's
spiritual
life as a
flight
from sin followed
by
a
striving
for
poverty, peace,
and
patience
so as to be able
to follow Jesus "into the mountain" and
culminating
in
the attainment of "the sublime desert at the
top
of the
mountain,"
that is to
say,
the
highest
state of
contemplation
of the divine
(Costello
1976:
334).
47 Cook's
original diagram
also includes a flat
spiral
within
the base of the mountain out of which rises a double helix
of entwined
serpents.
The
significance
of the
serpent
in the
context of the creational center
is,
of course,
well-known.
The
spiral
as a means of
denoting
the center and the
mountain is considered
by
Puree
(1974: 18).
Anthropos
97.2002
448
Mary
W. Helms
summit.48 The
logic
of such an association has
been
explicitly
stated
by
Eliade
(in
mountain-relat-
ed
general
discussion of
holy
sites and sanctuaries
as situated at the center of the
world)
in words
that seem tailor-made for the medieval
monastery
especially
as viewed
by
the brothers resident there:
"'our world' is
holy ground
because it is the
place
nearest to
heaven,
because from
here,
from
our
abode,
it is
possible
to reach
heaven;
hence
our world is a
high place."
Eliade then continues
with a more refined
interpretation,
one that seems
particularly appropriate
for the
garth proper
as
paradisiacal
site of the axis mundi and closest of
all the monastic
spaces
to
heaven,
when he
goes
on
to
say
that "this
religious conception
is
expressed
by
the
projection
of the favored
territory
. . . onto
the summit of the cosmic mountain"
(1959b: 39).
Conclusion
In Biblical tradition the cosmic mountain as first
principle archetype
is a
place
where innocent man
(Adam
in
Eden)
and
prophetic
man
(Moses
on Si-
nai)
first
approached
and encountered God. Seek-
ing
to attain some
degree
of
approximation
to this
grace,
medieval
monks,
striving
to be
morally
ideal
persons
and as would-be innocent
Adams,
were
permitted, by
virtue of habitation in the cloister
and
pursuit
of a
carefully regulated spiritual
life,
to live in close association with their version of
the cosmic
mountain,
too. In
actuality,
however,
the medieval
monastery
was
composed
not of one
but of two sacred
centers,
the cloister
garth,
which
emphasized cosmological
first
principles,
and the
church
proper, largely
defined
by
incarnational
and ecclesiastical
historicity.
This
duality (which
opens perspectives
on medieval monasticism that
go beyond
this
study)
has a
strong parallel
in
the relation between the two most fundamental
mountains of Judaism and
early Christianity,
Sinai
and Zion. In the ancient Hebraic
tradition,
the first
principles originally
heralded at
Sinai,
revelatory
mountain of the
prophet
and of the
covenant,
eventually
underwrote and
legitimated
Zion as
historical
Jerusalem,
the fortress mountain of the
temple
and
place
of the
priest,
even
though
the
exact location of the mountain of Sinai itself was
lost and
forgotten (and
continues to be a matter of
debate), leaving
Zion /Jerusalem as a
physical
en-
tity
to stand alone.49 In somewhat similar
fashion,
early
medieval Christian
imagery (monastic
and
ecclesiastical) explicitly
focused on Jerusalem50
as the
earthly
and historical formulation of the
celestial
city
of the future for which monastic life
was a
preparation.51
In this
context,
the
abbey
church
(considered
both as a
community
of faithful
and as a
building)
was
interpreted
as a
symbolic
representation
of the
heavenly City
of God and
as
analogue
of the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre
in Jerusalem as well as of the
Temple
of Solo-
mon.52
Unlike Hebrew
tradition, however,
in the me-
dieval monastic
setting
the ecclesiastical "Jerusa-
lem" did not stand alone while its first
principle
-
oriented "Sinai" dimmed. Far from
it,
for anteced-
ent first
principles
continued to
exist,
rooted not
only
in
tropes
of
original hierophanic
revelation
that identified monastic sites but
also,
and
especial-
ly, tangibly reconfigured
as the
paradisiacal
Eden
on the
primordial
cosmic mountain manifested
by
the
garth
and its
surrounding
walks at the center
of
every
monastic cloister.
Similarly,
as in the
relationship
between the two
great
mountains of
Israelite tradition in which "the
presence
is the
presence
of
Zion,
but the voice is the voice of
Sinai"
(Levenson
1985:
188),
so in the
monastery
the
liturgical
duties of the
church,
the
setting
for
the
opus
Dei that dictated the
organization
of the
monastic
day
and
night,
commanded the
energies
and the
greater physical presence
of the monks but
an
underlying
voice
speaking
of first
principles
and
Adamic covenants basic to the overall monastic
48 The
analogy
is further
encouraged by
the fact
that,
like
the sacred
mountain,
the
monastery
is also surrounded
by
bands of holiness such that
only
the
purest,
most
spiritually
developed,
can
actually
serve
(live)
within its inner sanctum
while those less
worthy
must remain
beyond
the
boundary
and derive its benefits
only
from a distance.
49 Eck 1987:
132;
Levenson
1985:90, 187;
Hobbs
1995:33,
51-53.
Historically
most Jews have avoided
assigning
an
earthly
location to Mt.
Sinai,
for the
presence
of the Hebrew
God was transferred from the mountain to the taberna-
cle.
Christians, however,
have
long sought
to
identify
a
topographical
site.
Although
there is no firm
agreement,
the favored site has been Jebel Musa in the south of the
Sinai Peninsula. A settlement of
monks,
which became the
famous
monastery
of Saint
Catherine,
was established there
by
the 4th
century
and has continued to this
day.
See Hobbs
(1995);
Bernbaum
(1997:
95
f.).
50 Jerusalem
having
been rebuilt as the center of the Christian
faith after the destruction of the Jewish
Temple (Binns
1994:82-84).
51 The
monastery
in this context was "a Jerusalem in anti-
cipation,
a
place
of ...
preparation
for that
holy city
towards which we look with
joy" (Leclercq 1961:69, 70;
Remensnyder 1995:21, 44, 84;
Russell
1997:43; Pelikan
1978:42).
52 Barne 1996:
229;
Norberg-Schulz
1975:
146;
McDan-
nell and
Lang 1988:78;
Hunt
1967:110; Remensnyder
1995:33,35;
Simson 1988: 37 f.
Anthropos
97.2002
Sacred
Landscape
and the
Early
Medieval
European
Cloister 449
experience
emanated from the
imagery
of the
quiet
garden
that stood as
symbolic replication
of the
paradisiacal beginning.
Outside the
monastery walls, however,
the
finer distinctions of monastic
experience
were of
less
importance. Instead,
the
monastery
as an
ideological
whole stood as "the inclusive center
of the
landscape" (Remensnyder
1995:
72).
In a
study
of
monastery
foundation
legends
in medieval
southern
France,
Remensnyder
has detailed
(1995:
chap. 2)
how monastic centers became the
sym-
bolic focal
points
of otherwise
generic,
undefined
territory through
various
processes
related to their
individual
beginnings
and foundations. She also
recounts
(among
other
things)
how wider networks
of
secondary religious
communities, churches,
and
chapels deriving
from an
original monastery
and
also established on sacred sites
generally
identified
in
legend
as revelational
(even
if valued or selected
by
more
earthly
circumstances, too)
could link a
number of
separate topographical points
into an
ordered "world." A world of this sort is initiated
by
the
abbey's origins;
then "a
map
is
created,
and the
abbey
is at its center"
(1995:
73
f.;
cf.
Pennick
1980:41).
I would amend and
deepen
this evocative statement
by suggesting
that the
founding abbey
that marked the center and stood
as
place
of
origins
and as
legitimating ideological
anchor for such a
topographically
and
ideologi-
cally
interrelated world can itself be
appropriately
appreciated
as the
symbolic
cosmic
mountain,
site
of creational
paradise
and
cosmological
focal
point
of the
surrounding
microcosm. The
early
medieval
European landscape
was blanketed
by
such monas-
tic "mountains" and their worlds.
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